For more than half the weekend, West Germany is a shopper's wasteland. Stores are closed at 2 p.m. Saturday and are not reopened until Monday morning. In Italy, there is the post-lunch break. Most shops are closed for a couple of hours in the afternoon. In England, it is legal to buy a newspaper on Sunday but not a book, to shop for fresh fruit and vegetables but not the same foods if they have been canned or bottled.

Your editorial "It's Outrageous" (June 28) simply proves that one man's poison is another man's cure. Permit a resident of the area to comment on your editorial. There is no question that we need public portable toilets throughout the downtown area. Perhaps housing can be provided in the large garages, like those The Times is building next to its offices? Since these structures are not in use after business hours, it is no loss to let them stay there. Los Angeles Times, what do you say?

Fremont General Corp., the bankrupt Brea financial services holding company, won a court order allowing its Fremont Investment & Loan to be acquired by a unit of CapitalSource Inc. CapitalSource Bank will acquire a "substantial portion" of Fremont Investment & Loan's assets, Fremont said. CapitalSource Bank will take over all of the bank's branches and deposits, the companies said. Fremont, once the nation's fifth-largest subprime lender, listed $362 million in assets in a July 3 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana. A spokesman didn't immediately return a call seeking comment after business hours.

The Pacific Stock Exchange said Tuesday that it will extend its trading day by 20 minutes to 1:50 p.m. West Coast time starting Oct. 24 to give brokers and investors a "second crack" at the market. The exchange, with trading floors in San Francisco and Los Angeles, already permits the trading of many stocks listed on East Coast exchanges until 1:30 West Coast time and 4:30 p.m. eastern time. That is half an hour after the eastern exchanges close.

Glendale school officials say they will cancel plans to open what would have been one of the state's first full-time evening high schools in September because of a lack of student interest. The proposed school--praised as an innovative solution to overcrowded campuses--was set to operate at Glendale High School under a different name, with a different principal, staff and student body, from about 2 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, hours when classrooms are generally not in use.

MCI Communications Corp., sharpening its aim at the $18-billion business long-distance telephone market, Wednesday unveiled a new package of services and discounts for small- and medium-sized businesses. It said this will give users who spend more than $500 a month on long-distance calls some of the same breaks that big telephone customers receive.

Re "Residents Dismayed by Wachs' Absences," July 21: Los Angeles fired Councilman Joel Wachs. The vehicle used to accomplish that was fairly impersonal. It's called term limits. The city also fired his staff on the same basis. Term limits do give the employees a long advance notice period--the entire last term of office. I don't live in Wachs' district, but I do find it notable that his constituents have reelected him for multiple terms. However, term limits are not the point. The real question is: How do you expect the terminated employees to behave while waiting for their last paychecks?